i have just finished unpacking all of my belongs after moving for the fourth time in less than a month. Somehow every time it seems as though I have less things.

Despite my lack of updating, it feels as though there isn't much to update on. My stressful days of work have now become the daily grind and pass mind numbingly fast. I now know what needs to be done when, and for who, and have become accomplished in the bed-making area, however I have accomplished banning my co-worker Adrie and I from working with each other. Apparently we take too long working together becuase all we do is talk. The funniest part about this is that she speaks no english and I speak very little Dutch, which may be the reason we work slowly. Either way, I've learnt a good chunk of my vocabulary from interacting with her and pointing or acting things out that I'm trying to tell her until she guesses what I'm talking about.

Work-wise I'm not looking forward to the coming week. There is an international gathering of people who seriously practice meditation. From what I have been told about them, they sound like hippies, so it will be interesting to see what they are actually like. They are the reason for Zach's and my move out of our apartment and into the hotel rooms. They have practically booked the entire hotel and apartments out, save a few rooms. Woo room-cleaning!

In the past weeks Zach and I have explored some surrounding towns and areas on our bikes (Nunspeet, Uddel, etc), and were taken to Arnhem to the Openluchtmuseum. This was a huge outdoor museum that explained the way of life of the Dutch in the past centuries until today. A co-worker took us, which was really good because he was able to explain things in English rather than us trying to understand the Dutch explainations.

This past weekend I spent some quality time with my co-workers as the Canadian family that is visiting here (they're Bergens from Rosthern, SK. Dara. you know them.) took Zach on a day trip. Sunday Zach and I cycled to Apeldoorn which is about 17 km away. We began the bike shortly before 9 AM with a very optimistic attitude. That changed very quickly. At least the first half of the bike is up hill, and with only three gears and dirt roads I wanted to go back to bed. If it had been raining we would have. We finally made it to Apeldoorn after an hour of biking and were able to find the church that we're supposed to be attending. The people were very nice and after the service we all had coffee together. Apparently their church affiars go until 2, since they have to have coffee, lunch, and another coffee after the service. Zach and I politely excused ourselves after the first coffee and walked through the market streets for a few hours. Usually nothing is open on Sundays, but seeing as it was the first sunday of the month, stores in big city centers are open. After window shopping for a few hours and finding a beautiful park with the ugliest ducks I've ever seen, we cycled to the outskirts of the city and toured through the Palais Het Loo. This Palace was the home of the current Queen's mother, and subsequently the queen, and the gardens are still part of the queen's daughters estate. In the gardens was a section filled with citrus fruit trees which were naturally bearing fruit, so we had to try the different types of oranges. Apparently we were the only ones stealing from the royal family, except for two men who had also set the alarm off inside the palace because they were entering forbidden areas. Hm. We enjoyed the outdoors and warm sun while snacking on chocolate wafers (thank you Mennorode!) that were supposed to be for guests. The bike home proved to be as discouraging as the bike to Apeldoorn. Since the shops were open, and things are much cheaper in Apeldoorn than Elspeet, Zach and I had both purchased some groceries. Although they were strapped on to the back of our bikes, it became very difficult to make it up the long hills.

So now we are at today! I have officially became one of those immigrants that works in hotels and cannot understand what you are trying to ask them. It's an awful feeling. Either way, we were taken to Zwolle today to become offical immigrants. After three hours, we left the building with a stamp saying it was legal for us to work. Luckily I missed work to do this.

Since I don't really have anything else to say, and I'm sure this has becoming boring, there's a few random things that I've noticed/realized in the past few days that I believe some people would get a kick out of. Here they are.

-there was what I thought was a mesquito bite on my leg, but it now is a giant, bloody, scabbed over hole in my leg...

-a bee or wasp stung me my second day in the Netherlands. My finger swelled up for a day and since then, I've had this strange dark dot on my finger where it stung me. Today I was informed that that was probably it's stinger in me. Great.

-my Dutch lessons start Wednesday. Ik ben neit klaar.

-today was annual "be extra nice to animals" day. It was bizarre. Children get to bring their animals to school.

-ketchup, mustard, mayo, etc. comes mostly in tubes here. Like toothpaste. I cannot understand why.

-lastly, what puzzles me more than the toothpaste tubes of ketchup is why they call cattle gates "wildroosters".

oh! I put a few pictures up of my trip so far. Enjoy!